Margaret Chase Smith

Margaret Chase Smith (14 December 1897-29 May 1995) was a member of the US Senate from Maine (R) from 3 January 1949 to 3 January 1973, succeeding Wallace White and preceding William Hathaway, having previously served as a member of the US House of Representatives from Maine's 2nd district from 3 June 1940 to 3 January 1949, succeeding Clyde H. Smith (her husband) and preceding Charles Nelson.

Biography
Margaret Chase Smith was born in Skowhegan, Maine on 14 December 1897, and she became a teacher and business executive after graduating from high school. She married the Republican Party politician Clyde H. Smith and was elected to the Maine Republican State Committee, and she successfully ran for her husband's seat in the US House of Representatives after he died of a heart attack in 1940. she would be re-elected for three terms, never winning below 60% of the popular vote. Smith supported giving women a permanent status in the US military, and she supported much of President Franklin D. Roosevelt's New Deal legislation, supported the 1940 Selective Service Act, and opposed making HUAC a permanent body. In 1949, she was elected to the US Senate, leaving the House for the Senate, and remaining there until 1973. She condemned the anti-communist witch hunt led by Senator Joseph McCarthy, and she claimed that he had assassinated the character of the Senate. In 1964, she ran for President of the United States, but she lost every single primary election, with Barry Goldwater eventually becoming the nominee instead. Smith supported the Vietnam War and advocated using nuclear weapons against the Soviet Union during the Cold War, and she also supported increased educational funding, the Civil Rights movement, and Medicare. In 1972, Democratic Party candidate Bill Hathaway defeated her for re-election, and she died of a stroke in Skowhegan in 1995 at the age of 97.